Untold
by ArtemisUndergoingMitosis
Summary: When Raine and her brother Genis are thrown into an unfamiliar world, they have to make their own way through life. The story of Raine's life between her abandonment and the events of the game. Contains spoilers.
1. Chapter 1

Note from the Author:

This is really different from the stuff I usually write. Generally, I write fluffly little one-shots, but this is going to be longer, and far more serious. At least ten chapters. The story was born of my inability to wrap my head around the picture presented in the game of Raine and Genis' life in Sylvarant. There were just too many unanswered questions, and so I began to formulate their back story in my mind. This is just me committing it to words. I hope you enjoy it, and please, read and review!

ArtemisUndergoingMitosis

* * *

Raine Sage didn't understand what was going on. Her mother was dragging her quickly towards a small, rickety boat, despite the storm that raged around them. Her baby brother Genis was safe in her mother's arms, and Raine herself struggled to keep up with her mother.

"Mother, what's going on?" Raine cried as they reached the boat.

"Shh…Raine, don't wake Genis. Just take the paddle; we need to get to that island."

"But why? Where are we going? I want to go home, Mother."

"Don't worry Raine, where you're going, you will be so much happier."

"Don't you mean where _we're _going?"

"Yes, yes, that's right. Where we're going." Raine looked at her mother, searching for reassurance, but she found none. What she saw was a wild determination, a look that transformed her mother's familiar face into something threatening. Between the storm and the look in her mother's eyes, a feeling of dread shot through Raine, and the eleven-year-old half-elf suddenly felt nauseous.

She didn't have time to talk to question her mother further. As soon as the bottom of the boat scraped the sandy beach of the storm beaten-island, her mother handed Genis to her, and started to push off, back out to sea.

"Where are you going!" Raine called desperately. Her mother was leaving her, leaving her to die on this island alone, surrounded by the ruins of some ancient site.

"Please Raine, take care of your brother! Go through the gate when it opens. Life will be good for you there, I promise. I love you, my Raine." Those were the last words Raine Sage heard her mother say before she tumbled through the Otherworldly gate, clutching her now crying baby brother, into an unfamiliar world.

* * *

Raine woke up in a bed. She looked around, searching for anything familiar. Nothing seemed right. She was sure that this was not her home, and yet, she couldn't remember what home was. There were flashes of recent memories. The storm, the gate, the ruins. Her mother leaving her on that little boat, her brother crying in her arms. Raine sat up quickly, panic shooting through her.

"Genis. Where is Genis?" she called, and only then did she realize that she was not alone in the room. An old woman sat in the corner along with a girl only a few years older than Raine herself, who was holding her baby brother.

"You're awake," the old woman said. "Thank Martel, for I feared that you would not wake."  
"Is my brother safe?" Raine asked desperately. He was the only thing that mattered right then. Her mother told her to take care of him, and she would.

"Yes, yes. He's a very resilient babe. He's fussed a little, but other than that he's had no trouble. It's you I'm worried about. You had quite the blow to your head."

"Can I see my brother?"

"He's right here child. Look, he's fine."

"I want to hold my brother," Raine said, setting her jaw. It was her responsibility to care for Genis, no one else's.

"You better hand her the babe, Cara, or we'll never hear the end of it." The girl glanced at the old woman nervously, but handed the child to his sister, and Raine took him gently. He smiled up at her and cooed in contentment, waving his arm until he got ahold of a long lock of Raine's pure white hair. Raine let him tug gently on it, and turned again to the old woman.

"The priest said he found you unconscious on the road, bleeding from a wound on your head quite a lot. He said he wouldn't have found you if this little bugger hadn't screamed so loud. He called me in from Iselia. My name is Kita Bove, and this is my apprentice, Cara. I'm a healer, and I've been practicing the arts a long time, but you, my dear, were a hard one to save."

"Th-thank you, I suppose. Where am I?"

"In a House of Salvation, near the village of Iselia." Raine thought hard, but Iselia did not sound like any place she was familiar with.  
"How did I get here?"

"I was hoping you could tell me." The old woman looked at her levelly, and Raine could see the girl sneak glances at her out of the corner of her eye, trying not to stare. But Raine could think of nothing but the storm and the ruins.

"The last thing I remember is the storm and the ring of stones, standing straight up," Raine said slowly, still trying to conjure memories of before that, or after.

"Girl, it hasn't rained here in weeks, and I have never heard of any 'ring of stones.' Are you sure that wasn't a dream?"

"But Mistress Bove! Father did say that he found her and the babe soaking wet, and their clothing smelled of salt. Maybe they came from the sea!"

"Cara, please don't open your mouth unless you have something intelligent to say. The ocean is far too long a ways for them to still be wet when they arrived here."

"My name is Raine," the half-elf said suddenly, and the old woman raised her brows at the white haired girl. "And my brother's name is Genis," Raine finished more quietly.

"It's good to know that you remember your names. How old are you?"

"Eleven. And Genis is six months."

"Very good. Where are you from?" Raine opened her mouth to answer, and then realized she couldn't.

"I don't know." Cara glanced at her sideways again, and Raine wanted to disappear into her blankets.

"That's fine. It will come back. Can you read?"

"Yes. I know math, too, and I know a little of the Angelic Language,"

"Well, that's something! Very rare for a village girl to know all of that. I'm sure you're parents will be searching far and wide for you." Mistress Bove looked satisfied, but Raine knew it wasn't true.

"No," Raine whispered, a tear escaping down her cheek.

"Hmm? You mustn't be so negative. They will find you, no doubt about it."

"My mother abandoned us." The healer and her apprentice exchanged glances. "At the ruins. In the storm."

"Don't worry, child. It'll be alright. When your memories start to come back, we can get you home where you belong. For now you need to rest. Cara, take the babe and put him to bed, and then you can go home. We could all use a little rest."Cara came and took Genis away, untangling him from Raine's long hair. Genis cried a little as he was taken from the familiar arms, but he settled in the crib across the room quite easily. Raine had to admit that she was tired, but she didn't want to see her brother go.

After Cara left, Mistress Bove looked Raine directly in the eyes again. The half-elf felt like the old woman was looking straight into her soul, even though she knew that was impossible. She saw the woman's eyes dart to the side of her head, and then back to her eyes. Raine bit her lip and smoothed her hair of the pointed ears self-consciously.

"Girl, it won't do any good to hide them. I've seen them already. What are you? Elf or half-elf?" Raine looked around wildly, searching for an escape, but quickly realized that it was ridiculous. Her head was pounding and she was sure she wouldn't be able to walk out the door on steady feet, let alone escape the building. She didn't even know which door led out and which was merely a closet. She considered lying, but she knew that the sharp old woman would know if she were not truthful.

"Half-elf," she whispered. The old woman sighed and shook her head, looking off into the distance as if she was thinking hard. That was hardly the reaction she had expected. Somehow, even with her fuzzy memory, Raine knew that telling people she was a half-elf generally led to hisses and cries of hate. She waited for that to come, for the information to sink in, but it never did.

"Best not tell the others about this. It would be easier if you just told everyone that you and your brother were full-blooded elves. Much simpler."

"But…you're not going to run away? You're not going to call the police?"

"Girl, I don't know where you are from, but around here, we won't do that. Still, most people are stupid, and to them, every half-elf is a Desian. Now go to sleep. You need your rest." Raine nodded, and her last thought before she drifted off to sleep was that she had no idea what a Desian was.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to those who reviewed, and sorry that there was such a gap between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2. Been really busy with school, and I've been playing with some original stuff. Anyway, Chapter 2~

Raine's body healed rapidly, but her memories never came back. Week after week flew by with Raine just sitting around the House of Salvation, waiting for her entire childhood to come flooding back. Still though, when she closed her eyes, all she could see was the stones, the storm, and her mother drifting away on that tiny boat. Soon, Mistress Boves stopped asking her questions about her past, and started asking about her future.

"Cara's a sweet girl, but she's not too sharp. She's good for fetching things and grinding herbs when my fingers quit on me, but not much else. How would you like to start helping me out? At least until your parents come to fetch you," the old woman said with a rare smile. Raine accepted enthusiastically, grateful for something to do.

"It'll be hard work, mind you. I don't want you underfoot if you aren't going to work hard," Mistress Bove warned. But she already knew that Raine would accept, and the eleven year old was eager for a challenge. Neither expected how quickly she took to it, though. Raine liked challenge of it, and it kept her mind off her uncertain path. She and Genis soon moved into the elderly healer's home in Iselia. At first, people kept their distance and stared, but sharing a village with a pair of elf children was not such a difficult adjustment, and while many people still kept their distance, at least no one glared or openly complained.

Raine found that she was too busy to worry about that anyway. Genis grew rapidly, and soon she was chasing a white haired toddler through the streets of Iselia. She grew to love her work, and would often work to heal animals as well as people. She was a quick study, and soon she knew nearly as much about herbal remedies as Mistress Bove. And she found a sort of ally in Cara, the healer's seemingly vapid apprentice.

"You and Genis are elves?" the honey-haired girl asked shortly after Raine's arrival, her blue eyes wide.

"Yes," Raine replied defensively, not really wanting to pursue this line of conversation.

"Is it really different, being an elf?"

"N-no, I guess not. I'm more aware of the world around me. I can feel the world's mana, and people's mana too."

"That's amazing! What is mana?" Raine relaxed a little. If this girl didn't know what mana was, then she certainly would not be aware of the differences between elves and half-elves. She only prayed that the rest of the villagers were even half as ignorant.

"It's the energy that. . ." Raine spent the next hour answering her fellow apprentice's relentless questions. Raine found that she enjoyed talking to Cara, and the bright look in her eyes drove her on. She seemed vapid and shallow most of the time, but Raine saw an eagerness to learn in her eyes, and she was a quick learner when the subject matter appealed to her.

"Someday I'm going to get out of Iselia and travel the world. I'll go to Palmacosta and Asgard, and I'll see the desert in Triet. I stand outside the Balacruf Mausoleum. Someday, when I get enough gald from Mistress Bove, I'm going to go. And I'll buy books—lots of them." She continued, chronicling her imagined journeys to the younger girl, her usually empty eyes full of excitement at the possibilities. Raine grinned back at her, pulled in by the other girl's enthusiasm.

"That's why I took this apprenticeship in the first place, you know," Cara said. "The books. Mistress Bove has so many of them. Histories of Sylvarant, tales of the Ancient Kharlan War, myth's about Mithos and his companions, books of all kinds really. Except elves. There is barely any mention of elves." Raine looked at her askance.

"Why do you think—" she began but was cut off by the approach of Mistress Bove herself.

"Come on Raine, Cara, there's a birthing at the Carlson's, and I'll need your help. Someone carry my bag. That's right. This way now." Mistress Bove took charge immediately, and her pair of apprentices fell into step, performing an already automatic routine. Raine dropped Genis off at the Brunel's on the way, leaving her brother with the old woman, Phaidra. On they went to the Carlson's farm outside of the village, to help with the birth of a healthy baby boy. It never seemed like a good time to talk about Mistress Bove's distinct lack of Elven lore in her small library again, but Raine and Cara did make it a point to read together on a regular basis, or else one would cover for the other while she poured over the leather bound volumes that populated the master healer's shelves.


	3. Chapter 3

Raine could distinctly remember the first time she realized that she healed a person instantly, in a way that Mistress Bove never could, for all her mastery of herb-lore. It was during the winter, and a child had caught cold. Not just any child—the Chosen of Regeneration, Colette Brunel.

She was seven. A tiny wisp of a girl, she was all gold and blue. Most of the other children treated her with caution, an odd sort of reverence. There were a few, like the boy who came from the forest sometimes, that acted normally around her. But she was the Chosen, and even Raine, six years her senior, was slightly in awe of the young girl. But she was kind to Genis, and for that, she was grateful.

In truth, it was only a cold. But when Raine saw that happy, golden child feverish in bed, she panicked. What would happen to Sylvarant if the Chosen died in her sickbed? What would happen to Genis when the only other child in the village who ever paid him any mind was gone? Raine herself had only been 13, and frightened. When Mistress Bove left the room with Collette's father and grandmother, Raine walked cautiously to the girl's side. She shivered under layers of blankets, but her forehead was hot under the half-elf's hand.

"Hi, Raine," she said, looking up at her with those huge, trusting, blue eyes. The girl coughed weakly, and Raine left her hand on the Chosen's pale forehead. And in her terror, Raine reached for the mana that was always there, the mana that she dared not touch. She could feel it rush forth from her fingertips, all warmth and light. Tiny tendrils of golden light crawled over Colette's skin, and the little girl's eyes opened wide, a small sound escaping from her lips. The magic seemed to take on a life of its own, and when it had ran its course, the light dissolved into small curling puffs of golden smoke. Colette's eyes closed then, and her breathing took on the steady rhythm of sleep.

"Raine."

The half elf turned quickly, nearly jumping out of her skin at the sound of Mistress Bove's voice. Colette's father stood next to her, and Raine studied him, wondering how long he had been there, and what he had seen. She saw only concern for his daughter. Maybe he hadn't seen.

"I was just telling Frank how Colette only has a cold. That there is _nothing to worry about_." Raine bit her lip, feeling her stomach tighten. She turned to Frank, her expression softening. "I suspect that Colette will be just fine when she wakes up in a few hours. Come, Raine. We have work to do in the herb garden." Raine followed Mistress Bove out of the house and down the street, until they were safely within the walls of the old healer's own cottage.

"_What were you thinking, girl!_" Mistress Bove shouted, her face shaking in anger. "I thought you couldn't do magic? That the power had been lost to you, that the world's mana supply was too low!" Raine winced.

"I—well, I can't make fire or control water or make sparks like Genis does. I thought—"

"No! You didn't _think_. If you had, you would never have slipped up like that! You and your brother are in a very precarious position in this village already. Toddlers that cough up sparks and can conjure their own puddles to splash in are terrifying enough! Do you really want to call more attention to yourselves?"

"What happened?" Raine and Mistress Bove were suddenly snapped away from their argument by the appearance of Cara, her cheeks rosy from the cold, Genis clinging to her hand as she helped him through the doorway.

"Raine has a new skill. Apparently she can heal people with magic. Who knew?" Mistress Bove said throwing her hands up in frustration. Raine thought it was a measure of her anger that she even shared the knowledge with Cara. Cara's already wide eyes grew as large as saucers, suddenly dropping Genis' hand.

"That's amazing!" Cara said, her expression the same star-struck expression she wore the first time she saw the first time Genis lit the flower bed on fire.

"No, it's not amazing, you fool girl. Luckily I spotted you and found a way to stall Frank before he walked in on you lighting his daughter up like a candle!" Raine let out a breath she hadn't even realized she had been holding. Mr. Brunel hadn't seen. Good.

"You lit her on _fire_?"

"Cara, stop butting into conversations that you don't understand," Mistress Bove spat, not taking her eyes off of Raine. "Just take Genis to play in the snow, and watch that he doesn't _actually_ set anything on fire." Cara left silently, the white-haired three year old trailing behind silently, his big blue eyes glancing back at his sister before the door closed behind him.

"I'm sorry," Raine whispered. Mistress Bove sighed.

"It's alright, girl. You must think, though, before you do things like that. How many times have you healed people like that before?"

"Th-that was the first time."

"Well, at least there were no failed attempts. Here, under my bed there is a loose floorboard—lift it up and take out the top book," the healer said, lowering herself into her rocking chair. When Raine only stared, she said, "Well? What are you waiting for? Move!" Raine scurried across the room and felt for the floorboard in question, extracting a heavy leather bound volume that had sat on top of the rest. She dusted off the binding, tracing the characters that ran up the side of the book. _This is a spell book_, she thought.

"Mistress Bove?" Raine said tentatively, looking at the woman who had taken her in, who she had lived and worked with for the last two years, and who she really didn't know at all.

"Don't look at me like that, girl. Just read it. Learn from it. Until you do, I'm taking Cara along with me to house calls, do you understand?" Raine nodded in response, still amazed by the book sitting in her hands right now had been under the floorboards this whole time.

"The other books, can I…?"

"No," the old woman said sharply. "No, those would not help you."

"It's in the Angelic Language," Raine said quietly, her cheeks coloring. "I-I can only read a little—"

"You better learn, then. I'll talk to Phaidra. She can arrange for one of the priests to help you. Don't mention the book, though. I don't want it getting around that I am in possession of such things. You are a curious girl—that should be enough for them." Raine opened her mouth to say something, but then thought better of it, biting her lip nervously.

"What is it now, girl?"

"I just wanted to say thank you." Mistress Bove gifted Raine with one of her rare smiles, her lined face creasing with the movement.

"Go make sure that Genis hasn't killed Cara yet. And start on that book!" Raine thought she caught a flash of sadness in the healer's eyes as Raine slipped out of the door, catching Genis in her arms as he giggled, trying to catch the snowflakes on his tongue. She smiled as he babbled about what kinds of animals you could find in the winter time, but her thoughts remained with that thick leather bound volume that she had left inside. Why would a healer in a small isolated village own such a book? What were the other books hidden beneath the floorboards? What secrets were contained within them? She thought of the elderly healer that she had left inside, wondering who exactly Mistress Bove was.


	4. Chapter 4

~Untold, Chapter 4

It wasn't long before Mistress Bove decided that Raine had learned enough from the spell book to begin coming on house calls again, though she suspected that it had more to do with her frustration over Cara's relative incompetence rather than her own progress, which was slower than Raine liked to admit. The text was dense and learning the language was difficult, though she worked diligently night after night. Cara had expressed curiosity in what she was doing, and when Mistress Bove wasn't around, Raine would show her the heavy volume.

"So it's written in the Angelic language?" Cara asked, leaning over the book, he fingers brushing delicately over the aging pages.

"Yes. And it describes healing techniques that only magic users can do," Raine replied in hushed tones, knowing that Mistress Bove could come back at any time. Genis sat in front of the door, staring determinedly at a wooden puzzle meant for significantly older child, and making good progress on it. Hopefully he would inadvertently warn them of their employer's approach when the time came.

"You're so lucky you're an elf," Cara said wistfully. Raine winced at the statement. She hated it when people brought up the lie that still only Mistress Bove knew the truth of. She hadn't even told Genis—he was too young to understand such things anyway. The longer he believed he was a full-blooded elf, the better. "Magic seems so wonderful. I wish I could do it," Cara continued, unaware of how uncomfortable she was making Raine.

"Well, I'm not really very good at it yet. And from what I can tell, it can be pretty dangerous." In fact, Raine had been through the first thirty pages of the spell book so far, and it was completely comprised of warnings against the frivolous uses of magic and the potentially deadly consequences of flawed technique.

"Well, I'm sure you'll get better. You're really smart, Raine."

"Thanks, Cara."

"Now will you teach me some of the Angelic language? I love the way it sounds when you read it out loud," Cara said. Raine grinned and started repeating the first lessons she had received from the priests from the Martel Temple. Soon Cara was reading the first pages of the book out loud on her own, though she didn't know the meaning of what she was saying. Mostly, she liked the sounds. Whenever Mistress Bove was out, the two of them would sit around the book and Cara would read aloud in her crystal clear tones, her soprano voice pronouncing the words in a way that Raine never could. They were careful not to let Mistress Bove know that Cara knew anything of the book at all—let alone that Raine was teaching her to read it. Somehow they knew that the shrewd old woman would not take kindly to such a revelation.

Life went on as before, but Raine soon grew restless. As much as she loved Mistress Bove and was grateful to all of her help, she began wondering about her life before Iselia again. She began to lose focus more and more often as she pictured far off lands and circles of stone—ruins fascinated her more than anything. She loved the idea of worn stone and places that had history. And somewhere in the back of her mind, she thought that if she could just find that circle of stone from her first memory, everything else would come tumbling back—she would find her mother, she would live a normal life, she wouldn't have to hide her identity any longer. She could go to school and learn anything she wanted, she could actually travel the world with Cara and Genis like they had always planned.

"Raine, pay attention to what you are doing. That poultice is too thick," Mistress Bove chided as the young half-elf's mind wandered one afternoon when she was sixteen. Genis was hungrily reading a book in the corner that dwarfed his five-year-old frame. Cara, however, was nowhere to be found. She had been spending less and less time with Mistress Bove and more time with Jack, one of the village boys. She and Raine still spoke often, but the half-elf was getting more and more frustrated with her constant talk of that sleepy-eyed teen.

"I'm sorry," Raine said quickly, trying to focus her mind back onto the task at hand. Cara had recently confided in Raine that she thought she might marry Jack, that she thought maybe he was "the one." But the more Cara talked about him, the more Raine disliked Cara. It was unfair, she knew. Part of her was jealous, not of Jack's attention in particular, but of any boy's attention. Raine had begun eying the village boys a few years ago, and she was just beginning to feel painfully alone as all of her peers in Iselia began to pair off. And as Cara talked more and more about Jack, she talked less and less about traveling and learning—the things that Raine had liked about Cara in the first place.

"Raine," Mistress Bove said sharply. "Don't grind it into nothing. Come on girl, you've been making this potion for years. Get your head out of the clouds and back in the room where it belongs."

"I'm sorry," Raine replied softly, and Mistress Bove sighed.

"It's alright, girl. Now, whatever is troubling you, put it behind you. We have work to do." Raine's mouth quirked into a small smile at the typical response, and secured her now completed poultice into one of the many jars on the shelf behind her, and moved on to beginning an apple gel. She hummed a tune that Cara had taught her as she worked, until Mistress Bove told her in no uncertain terms that tone deaf individuals should never hum in her presence.

That winter, Raine's world turned upside down.

A nasty flu had swept through the village. Mistress Bove had been particularly stiff since the first frost, but Raine hadn't been over worried until she started to cough. It had started slowly. Raine had tried to convince her to let her heal her—she had been practicing on rabbits and dogs for years now, and she could even heal herself—but the old woman would have none of it.

"You keep that magic far away from me," she insisted even through a coughing fit.

"But, if I could just…"

"No. If you want to practice on anyone, try Cara's little man friend. If you kill him, I'll get a full time apprentice back. If you heal him, then at least I won't have to hear her incessant squawking that he's going to die." Genis, who was huddling next to Raine's leg, giggled at her comment.

"What are you laughing at, boy? That was not a joke." The 5 year old pouted at that, and he dragged his feet all the way back to the cottage. When they reached the door, Mistress Bove's face turned into a wrinkled smile, and she ruffled Genis' hair. "You're a good kid, Genis. Don't let the world take that from you," she said cryptically. Genis cocked his head and followed her inside, immediately reaching for the book that he had been struggling through.

The next morning, old Kita Bove couldn't get out of bed.

"Mistress Bove?" Genis said tentatively pulling at the thick quilt that covered the healer's frail form. Raine stood nervously off to the side, wondering what she should do. She knew Mistress Bove wouldn't want her particular brand of medicine. She also knew that her teacher of the last five years would die if she didn't do _something_.

"Genis. What is troubling you?" she rasped.

"You're sick," he said. "Can you fix yourself like you do everyone else?" he asked, his deep blue eyes betraying both his hope and his fear. Raine wanted to sweep him into her arms and hold him tight, but he was starting to get too old for that. So she merely waited, hugging herself tightly, trying not to cry.

"Not this time, I think," she said sadly. "Why don't you run and play in the snow, and I can watch you from the window?"

"Okay," Genis said a little uncertainly. He hesitated at the door after he pulled on his thick coat, but Mistress Bove waved him out the door with a slight motion of her shaky hand. When he closed the door, the old woman sighed heavily and closed her eyes. Raine still stood in the corner, unsure of what to do.

"Girl, don't you look at me like that. I've known this was coming for a long time." Raine bit her lip, and felt mana well up through her fingertips despite herself, casting a soft golden glow through the cottage. "Stop. None of that now," Mistress Bove said.

"But…" Raine whispered thickly, feeling the first tears slide down her cheeks as she stared at the light dancing slowly across her palms.

"Shh…It's alright, girl. It's alright. Now, come here. We have a few things to get straight." Raine nodded weakly and tried to compose herself as she crossed the room.

"I've already sent for another healer from Triet. I know him, and he will serve the villagers here well. You should not feel obligated to stay, and neither should Cara." Raine opened her mouth to protest, but Mistress Bove cut her off with a raise of her brow. "Stay here if that's really what you want. But I for one hope you find a school. That's where you belong—you need more books than you can find in Iselia. And your smarts are wasted in this place. Bring Genis with you, start him in school early. You two deserve it." Mistress Bove broke off into a coughing fit, and it was all Raine could do to keep from wrapping her guardian in the warm golden light that felt so close at hand.

"I-I could heal you," Raine said desperately, unable to contain herself any longer. The old healer hacked out a laugh.

"Girl, that would be like trying to bandage a leg back onto a body after a bear bit it off. It gets messy, and it won't work. It's my time." Raine's lip trembled uncontrollably and tears ran steadily down her cheeks. "There, there. I want you to have something. Under the floorboards—do you remember? Yes, there," Mistress Bove said when Raine lifted the heavy wooden plank. Underneath were those same dusty, leather-bound books she had spotted years before. She lifted the top one out, and opened to the first page.

_This Journal is the Property of Kita Bove_, the first page said in Mistress Bove's neat, heavy script. Raine traced the letters with her finger before looking back at the dying woman.

"Take it," Mistress Bove croaked. "You are welcome to all of the rest, but that is the important one." Raine nodded solemnly, crossing the room once more to the woman who had taken her in all those years ago. "You take care of yourself, now," she rasped. "And Genis, too. You deserve the best. Thank you for brightening an old woman's life. Now, help me sit up a little so I can watch Genis play like I promised." Raine helped her sit up, and cried silently as the old healer looked out the window stroked Raine's hair with her knarled fingers until she fell into a peaceful sleep. By the time Genis came inside, Mistress Bove was gone. He shook the snow out of his hair before he crawled into his sister's lap as she cried, and Raine stroked his hair as Mistress Bove had done for her.

"Mistress Bove isn't going to wake up, is she?" Genis asked quietly over the soft noise of the crackling fire.

"No, Genis. No, she's not." He nodded, curled into an even tighter ball and fell asleep in Raine's lap. Eventually, Raine fell asleep as well. When Cara found them in the morning, she called for Jack and a few other young men from the village to help bury Mistress Bove. Raine watched silently as they lowered her into the grave and poured the frozen dirt over her frozen form.

_She hates the cold,_ Raine thought as the last shovel full of dirt was placed on top of the mound. A simple stone grave marker was placed at her head, and all of the boys patted Raine on the shoulder before they walked away. Soon, only she, Cara, and Genis were left.

"I'm leaving Iselia," Raine said without looking at Cara.

"Come now, Raine," Cara said. "This is home. I know we used to talk, but we can't just leave. We're not kids anymore."

"This isn't my home," Raine said, suddenly hit with an intense image of that ring of stones and the memory of the sting of salt in her eyes. _I thought I had forgotten that_, Raine thought. "Genis and I are going—you can come or not."

"Raine, Jack asked me to marry him last night," Cara whispered. "I said yes. This is where I belong." Raine suddenly felt her anger flare.

"Fine. You can stay here with _Jack_,"Raine spat. "Have a nice life, Cara. I hope it's enough for you." Raine said, gathering Genis into her arms. He shivered against her chest, and she stalked to the cottage she had lived in for the past 5 years.

"Wait, Raine! Don't be angry, please. Raine! Please!" she called after them.

"Bye, Cara," Genis said softly just before Raine closed the door. She didn't glance back at the only real friend she had ever had. Instead she put Genis to bed and began packing—she wanted to leave by dawn.


End file.
